


Rise and Fall

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [141]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 14,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10095248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Benny rises from Purgatory. Samandriel falls from heaven. AU from Season 8Chapters posted as written, which is non-chronological.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the comment_fic prompt: "You're cute."

Benny eyed the kid in the Wiener Hut uniform and didn't know what to think. He had wide earnest eyes and freckles across his nose and they looked damn young. The entire time they'd been sitting outside of Crowley's hideout he hadn't said a word, just perched on the edge of the table with inhuman balance and watched. Exactly like Crazy Castiel had told him to.  
  
"You hungry, kid?" Benny asked. He fished in his pocket for something, heard the crinkle of a wrapper, came up with a bag of those ridiculous candy hearts. He fished one out and slid it across the table to the kid. "Eat something. You're freaking me out."  
  
The kid flicked a glance over him briefly, then resumed scanning the perimeter of Crowley's hideout.  
  
Benny's phone buzzed with a text message from Dean. _It's a go._ Benny stood up, stretched, and gave his machete a few practice swings. "You ready to go kill some demons, kid?"  
  
The kid reached out and scooped up the candy heart. He studied it for a second, with the that same perplexed look Crazy Castiel got sometimes when Dean made a pop culture reference. Then he turned the heart around for Benny to read and raised an eyebrow.  
  
_U R Cute._  
  
Benny shrugged. "What? It's true."  
  
The kid grinned and popped the candy heart into his mouth, chewed enthusiastically, and damn, but that grin might have lit up a room. Then the kid hopped off the table, and from out of nowhere he was holding one of those funky silver swords that Dean called and angel blade. He lifted his chin and shook himself out, and he was no longer a kid who worked a crappy fast-food joint: he was an angel, ancient and proud and powerful.  
  
"Let's go kill some demons," he said.  
  
Benny grinned at him in return. "That's what I like to hear. Say, what's your name?"  
  
"Samandriel."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the comment_fic prompt: "Blue and Sparkling."

Benny had never expected to be afraid of anything blue and sparkling. He'd been unimpressed, the first time a girl wore a sparkly blue dress for a date. He'd been amused, the first time he'd seen the glowing blue lights in Vegas. He'd been hopeful, the first time he'd seen the blue sparking gash in reality in Purgatory that meant a way out.

And then, in the middle of a fight, he saw something blue spark behind Samandriel's eyes, blue like fire (blue like grace) and then the demons were yelling and the air was thrumming and Benny could see, shadowed against the wall, a pair of mighty wings. And then the demons were dead and Samandriel's silver sword was dripping with blood. For one moment, Benny was afraid.

He looked at his machete, then at the kid in the Wiener Hut uniform (they had to get him new clothes). "You don't really need me, do you?"

"Castiel told me to protect you," Samandriel said, and Benny wasn't sure if he should blush and be flattered or be irritated that Crazy Castiel thought he couldn't handle a few demons (a room full of demons).

"I'm flattered he likes me," Benny said.

Samandriel cleaned his blade with a flick of his wrist, like in a samurai movie, and then the blade vanished somewhere in his goofy uniform. "He doesn't, but Dean likes you, and he likes it when Dean is happy."

"Do you like me?" Benny asked.

Samandriel had him crowded up against the wall in an instant. Damn. And Benny thought vampires moved fast. He gazed into Samandriel's eyes, and they were bright blue, and sparkling with something that looked all too human and very much like mischief, and then Samandriel was kissing him, and that wasn't so bad.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the comment_fic prompt: "we can make it though this no matter what."

They could make it through this no matter what. As far as Benny knew, Castiel was pretty much the only totally socially inept angel out there. Other angels seemed perfectly capable of grasping things like sarcasm and pop culture. When Samandriel was in what Benny thought of as angel-mode, focused on battle and slaying demons, he forgot things like, oh, facial expression. His face went blank, his eyes flared with holy blue flame - grace - and he looked like nothing on earth.  
  
But here, in the diner, wearing a stained old apron and serving gumbo, he was fresh-faced and earnest, charming and sweet, and the patrons loved him. He never messed up an order, he magically knew when someone needed a top-up or when the coffee pot needed refreshing, and he never dropped anything.  
  
It was a risky move, coming back to his home town, to his family's business, but Benny needed something to hold on for. He knew some of the others looked at him askance because he shared his little camp trailer with Samandriel (which was silly, because angels didn't sleep, but humans didn't know that), and Samandriel looked so young. They also looked at him askance because he'd spent the first month flinching every time someone called the angel 'Sam'.  
  
As long as Benny had Samandriel beside him, he could do this, suppress the worst parts of his nature and keep his home. No matter how good that one old man smelled when he came in after a hard day's work, hands cut and nicked from repairing fishing nets and wafting the delicious scent of blood everywhere. No matter how once in a blue moon a demon stopped by to enjoy its jaunt among humanity and Samandriel would lure it out back and smite it and they'd have to bury the body. No matter how social services showed up every few weeks and after a private chat with Samandriel the social worker would drift away, looking dazed. Benny could do this. They could do this together.  
  
Until Naomi came calling.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the comment_fic prompt: "are we ever going to be normal?"

Benny straightened up, took a few deep breaths. Why was he always out of breaths after he dispatched a monster? On the other side of the clearing, Samandriel was covered in blood and gore, but he flicked his wrist, and then his angel blade was clean, and was he even breathing?  
  
"I just want you to know," Benny said, reaching into his pocket for his handkerchief. "My mama raised me right. I have manners. Usually on dates I hold doors open and pull chairs out and let the lady order first."  
  
"I'm not a lady," Samandriel said. But he submitted to Benny's ministrations calmly, let Benny dampen his handkerchief with water from his army surplus canteen and clean the worst of the blood off his face. Once enough of the blood was gone that no one would look at them too askance in the dim light on the way back to the bunker, they headed for Benny's truck.  
  
"Still. Killing things. Not exactly my idea of a date," Benny said. "Are we ever going to be normal?"  
  
"I'm sure Dean would tell you that normal is overrated." Samandriel buckled himself into the passenger seat. The inhuman serenity he wore into battle would never cease to weird out Benny. Dean said that Castiel had been the same at first, devoid of expression in dangerous situations. But he'd been around humans longer, had even been human a couple of times.   
  
"Besides," Samandriel continued, and there it was, the bright, sweet, innocent grin that used to get him extra tips at the gumbo shack, "now that we've gotten absolutely filthy killing monsters, we can go back to the bunker and take a long hot shower. Together." And his grin took on a filthy edge of its own.  
  
"Right," Benny said. "Of course. Better clean up." And if he stepped on the gas, there were no cops around to know about it. His mama had raised him right, and he understood the importance of being clean. Cleanliness was next to godliness and all. Or at least next to naked, wet, writhing angels.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: "come play."

When someone knocked on the front door of the Bunker, Dean was confused, but only an ally could have made it that close to the door, so he opened it.  
  
And stared.  
  
There was Samandriel, dressed like he'd stepped out of another decade, another century, homespun pants and shirt, suspenders and a familiar-looking fisherman's cap. He was holding a baseball and a catcher's mitt and looked so much like the innocent kid Dean remembered from all those years ago, the one who'd been fascinated by bugs, that Dean's heart ached for a second, because he'd never wanted that kid to get caught up in all this again.  
  
And then he stared. "Samandriel? Why are you knocking? You live here. And what's with the –" He gestured at the outfit.  
  
But Samandriel smiled sweetly and said, "Can Benny come out to play?"  
  
And Dean remembered the time he'd been passed by the showers after Benny and Samandriel came back from a hunt and heard...sounds in there.  
  
Oh, hell no. He didn't want to think about this.  
  
But he said, "Sure. Why not." And then he reached for his walkie-talkie to summon Benny, because Kevin and Sam got really pissy when anyone hollered through the Bunker and disturbed their precious research. "Benny, can you come to the front door? Samandriel wants to know if you can come out to play."  
  
Dean supposed he shouldn't have been surprised when Benny showed up at the door wearing an outfit that matched Samandriel's (but was really Benny's usual style, so maybe Samandriel matched him) and carrying a catcher's mitt of his own.  
  
"Have fun, boys," Dean said, shoving Benny out the door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."  
  
But he couldn't stop the tiny stab of jealousy he felt when Samandriel reached out and twined his fingers through Benny's. Dean closed the door.  
  
"What was that about?" Sam asked.  
  
"Don't ask," Dean said, and went back to cleaning his guns.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: "he thought everyone forgot his birthday."

When Benny, Sam, Dean, and Castiel stepped into the Bunker after too long a drive, it was pitch dark. All four of them drew their weapons immediately.  
  
"Samandriel?" Castiel hissed. "Are you there?"  
  
There was a shuffle, a rustle of cloth, and then a hiss, like burning –  
  
Like a match being struck.  
  
  
The four of them stared as, one by one, dozens of tiny flames came to life. Candles on a birthday cake.  
  
"I wasn't sure if you wanted to count your years in Purgatory," Samandriel said, "so if there's too many candles, I can take them off." He was standing in the middle of the atrium just below them, holding a birthday cake.  
  
Benny blinked. "Is that for me?"  
  
Samandriel's hopeful smile dimmed a little. "Isn't it your birthday today? There weren't very many Benny Lafittes in the census records from Louisiana, and only one matched your description –"  
  
"You have a birthday?" Dean demanded.  
  
"He was human once. Of course he has a birthday," Sam said patiently. He lowered his gun.  
  
"What's the date?" Benny asked.  
  
Sam told him.  
  
"That is my birthday," Benny said slowly. "It's just...everyone who ever knew my birthday is probably dead by now. And I assumed the rest of you forgot. That I used to be human."  
  
Sam ducked his head, chagrined.  
  
Samandriel's smile brightened. "Well then, happy birthday!" He hoisted the cake. "Come make a wish." He darted a glance at Sam. "That's the appropriate tradition, right? Matt's memories are a little fuzzy on the subject."  
  
"And now all your questions make so much more sense." Sam led the way down the stairs.  
  
"Did you bake that cake yourself?" Dean asked, wary.  
  
"I read the instructions on the box and followed them perfectly," Samandriel said, affronted at the skepticism in Dean's tone.  
  
Benny leaned in and kissed Samandriel softly. "Thank you."  
  
"Go on," Samandriel said. "Make a wish."  
  
Benny didn't have to. He already had more than he ever could have wished for. But he blew the candles out anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you think we will make it?

"Do you think we'll make it?" Benny asked.  
  
He and Samandriel were under strict orders to keep an eye on the church where Sam was curing Crowley while Dean and Castiel ran to get help from Metatron.  
  
Samandriel nodded. "I know we will. Metatron will help us. He'll understand. He'll needs to be closed for good."  
  
"What will happen to the bad souls?"  
  
"Purgatory," Samandriel said, "and then a chance to return to Heaven."  
  
"So we all get to go to heaven in the end?" Benny asked.  
  
Samandriel nodded. Benny wondered what that would have been like, if he'd stayed in Purgatory till another creature got the better of him. He wondered what it had been like for Samandriel living there, and then coming to live down here.  
  
Benny cast Samandriel a sidelong look. "You really think Sam can do this?"  
  
"I know you don't always get along," Samandriel said, "but Sam Winchester is legendary in heaven, beside being the boy with the demon blood. He once fought off Lucifer himself. With Dean by his side, he is capable of great things."  
  
"Dean better get back here with some extra angelic mojo then," Benny muttered.  
  
Samandriel's smile was beatific, exactly the kind of smile Benny had always imagined angels would have when he was a child. "All will be well. Have a little faith."  
  
And then the sky exploded overhead, and the heavens were filled with falling stars, shooting stars, comets, people pelting toward earth in flames, and Samandriel was screaming and screaming and screaming, and Benny didn't know what to do. All he could do was hold Samandriel close and try to soothe him, and then he realized that the people pelting toward the earth in flames had wings, and their wings were burning, and it was Benny's turn to scream for help, for Sam, for Dean, for Castiel, for anyone.  
  
No one answered.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam came careening around the corner, gun in one hand, knife in the other, and skidded to a halt.  
  
All of the demons were dead. Samandriel stood in the midst of a dozen burnt-out corpses, angel blade hanging limply from his hand. The sharp ozone-sulphur sent of demon-souls on the wrong end of an angel-smiting was heavy in the air. The utter lack of expression of Samandriel's face was frightening.  
  
"Samandriel?" Sam said cautiously. "Is everything all right?"  
  
"He's dead," Samandriel said.  
  
More than one of the corpses was male. "Yes," Sam said slowly.  
  
Samandriel's hands curled into fists. "Benny. They killed Benny. They told me. They tortured him slowly. They –" Grace flickered in his eyes.  
  
Sam flinched back instinctively.   
  
Dean's voice cut across the silence. "Sammy! I could use you on my six right about now!"  
  
"Come on." Sam beckoned and turned in the direction of Dean's voice.   
  
Samandriel shook his head. "I have to find his body. He deserves to be laid to rest properly –"  
  
"We can't do that until the battle is over." Sam kept his tone gentle. "Come on."  
  
Samandriel grabbed his shoulder, and there was that sickening sense of being squeezed down into a tiny box and scattered into his component atoms at the same time. They rematerialized in a room full of...angels? Demons?  
  
"If you want to find out where your boy is, you have to leave him alive," Dean was saying.  
  
Benny was astride the last of the living angels (the poor man had a discarded angel blade just out of reach) and was punching him over and over and over again. Any human would have died long ago, but the angel was still struggling weekly. Benny's fangs were bared and his face was spluttered with blood and bone and he was still hitting.  
  
"Benny!" Samandriel cried, and something about the way he said the name was utterly human.  
  
Benny froze. "Samandriel?" The feral light faded from his eyes, and his fangs retracted. He, too, was utterly human in that instant. "They told me you were dead. They said –"  
  
"The demons said the same thing to me." Samandriel crossed the room, heedless of his fallen brethren and sisters. In the corner, Castiel knelt beside one girl, his expression sorrowful.  
  
Sam narrowed his eyes. What would the purpose have been in lying to the two of them?   
  
Samandriel yanked Benny into a kiss, fierce and desperate, and Sam blinked. He knew the two of them were oddly fond of each other, but he hadn't expected this.  
  
Dean cleared his throat uncomfortably and deliberately looked away.  
  
"Yes, your touching reunion is fine and dandy, but I could use a little help here," Kevin said.  
  
Sam looked up and saw Kevin suspended from the ceiling in a massive metal cage. "Right." He sheathed his knife and holstered his gun and started for the far wall where the chain suspending the cage was attached.  
  
Dean moved to help him.  
  
"So," Sam said, glancing over his shoulder at where Benny and Samandriel were kneeling together, cradling each other and checking each other over for injuries. "How long has that been going on?"  
  
"Don't want to think about it too much, honestly," Dean muttered. But when Benny and Samandriel fell asleep on the ride home, curled around each other in the back seat of the Impala, he glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled fondly.  
  
Sam glanced at Kevin, who shrugged and went back to reading the book Sam had procured for him for the trip home. Sam was glad Samandriel and Benny had each other, but he was worried, too. The enemy had known before he did, and now there was one more way to hurt their little family.


	9. Chapter 9

Benny didn't know how much he could contribute to problems of heaven and hell, as he was a vampire. Sam and Kevin did the majority of the research at the bunker. Dean, for all his complaining about the tediousness of research, was good at it when the task demanded. Castiel tended to flit about, helping mortals and other angels as best as he could to make up for all the destruction he'd wreaked in heaven. Samandriel didn't seem to hold it against Castiel, but anyone who hung out with the Winchesters for too long developed a guilt complex beyond compare.  
  
So Benny did what he did best. He cooked, and Samandriel took over cleaning duties with aplomb.  
  
But because neither of them were human, neither of them needed food, and neither of them needed breaks, and Samandriel was forbidden from cleaning anything but people's immediate living quarters - and a few guests rooms for when people like Charlie came by - they always ended up getting their chores done quickly, and then there wasn't a whole lot else to do. As much as Benny would have enjoyed wiling away his free time making love to Samandriel anywhere and every which way possible, a vampire was no match for an angel in the stamina department, and Dean still got a weird funny look on his face whenever he caught them being affectionate with each other.  
  
Kevin offered to teach them how to play his video games – Charlie was kind enough to bring him new ones whenever she stopped by – but Benny wasn't interested, and neither was Samandriel, because their superhuman reflexes meant they were always going to win.  
  
It was Samandriel who came up with the idea to plant a garden. They didn't have a very steady income, even though Benny would sometimes go pick up odd jobs around town so they had a little extra cash. A garden would grant them a basically endless supply of food, and healthier food to boot. Dean didn't have an opinion on the matter, but Sam gave Samandriel the go-ahead to build a greenhouse above the bunker and ward it to protect it from thieves and vandals, and that was how Benny found himself digging in the dirt with Samandriel in his spare time when they could have been having lots of sex.  
  
"So..." Benny had never been much of a gardener in any of his previous lives. "Samandriel. Why do all angel names end in -el? Like Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Castiel."  
  
"Not all angel names do," Samandriel said. "Hannah. Zachariah. Joshua. Sandalphon. Tabriz."  
  
"Okay, fine. But a lot of them do."  
  
"The -el is from _Elohim_ and means _god_. Many of our names refer to Him. Gabriel means _God is my strength._ Daniel means _God is my judge._ Samuel means _name of God._ " Samandriel planted seeds smoothly, rhythmically, like he was born to do it.  
  
"And what does your name mean?"  
  
"Inspiration from God."  
  
Benny glanced at him. "Is it hard, living up to your name?"  
  
"Angels aren't given names the same way humans are," Samandriel said. "We are servants first and children second. Our names are our functions. Gabriel was the general of the armies of the heavenly host. Our names are not simply a way to differentiate us one angel from another; they define us. They limit us. They give us purpose and form. They _are_ us."  
  
"That's pretty...heavy."  
  
"It is what I am."  
  
"Do you miss it? Your old angel job?"  
  
Samandriel glanced at him from beneath his lashes. "What makes you think I've given it up?"

Benny's hands stilled. Was he still an agent of heaven? Of Naomi?  
  
"Do I not inspire you to be something you never were before, you never thought you could be?" Samandriel asked. "Do I not encourage you to dream of things you once thought were impossible?"  
  
The fear whispering through Benny's blood was replaced by warmth and affection. "I guess you do, kid." He'd never dreamed his life now was possible, with a real family and a home.  
  
Samandriel smiled faintly and kept working. "What about you? Why Benny? Benjamin has a noble tradition and a rich history." He said something in Hebrew, rolling and graceful, that sounded like Benny's name but wasn't quite. "It has many meanings. Son of my days. Son of the south. Son of the right. Spirit man. Son of my pain."  
  
No one had ever told Benny that. He'd been named for his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Lafitte. "Seems like kind of a lot of weight to carry around. Benny was what my mama called me, and it stuck, long after I was grown."  
  
"I like it." Samandriel lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I was just curious."  
  
"Did you mind it, at the gumbo shack, when people called you Sam?"  
  
"No. It made me feel more – human. Like I fit in."  
  
"What was up with Alfie?"  
  
"Matt's boss gave them all ridiculous nicknames, and they wore them on their uniforms." Samandriel still had that uniform somewhere, Benny knew. "But I prefer Samandriel. It's who and what I am."  
  
"I like Samandriel just fine." Benny leaned across the row and kissed him softly, then kept planting.  
  
When Dean sent Benny a text message asking about dinner, they abandoned their gardening for the day and returned to the bunker below, walking hand in hand.


	10. Chapter 10

If Samandriel angel-teleported in the bunker one more time, Kevin was going to slap him with a warding charm to hold him in one place, because all the flittering around wasn't helping. Charlie had nominated herself Samandriel's best man, because she adored all angels. She was having no luck getting him to stand still so she could tie his bow tie.  
  
Dean and Castiel had Benny corralled in a different room in the bunker and were trying to get him to calm down. Charlie kept telling them she had a friend who worked at a blood bank on speed dial, and she could get some blood from a Valium addict if they needed it.  
  
Kevin's Mom had deemed herself in charge of the food, because apparently she'd done some crazy summer internship in New Orleans in college, and she could make Cajun food with the best of them. She'd chased Garth out of the kitchen three times that morning as it was. The only thing Garth had been allowed to help with was decorating the cake, because as a former dentist he had incredibly steady hands.  
  
When the moment finally arrived, Benny standing at the altar, Dean and Castiel at his side, the tension in the air was so thick Kevin wondered how anyone could even move. But then Samandriel appeared in the doorway, Charlie right behind him, and Kevin scooted into place so he and his mother could escort Samandriel down the aisle for the giving-away portion of the ceremony (Benny was old-fashioned that way). Samandriel took that first step along the rose-strewn path Garth had made, and Kevin knew everything would turn out all right.  
  
So long as no demons crashed the party.


	11. Chapter 11

"It's ruined," Castiel said, casting his gaze over the earth. "I hope I never have to go down there." He would if ordered to, of course, he was a good soldier that way.  
  
The man and woman had been tricked by Lucifer, eaten the fruit, and the lush green garden that had covered the planet had given way to jagged wilderness, deserts and dry places where nothing grew. The eternal life, youth, and peace of Eden had been replaced with death, age, and pain.  
  
Samandriel watched the man and woman huddled beside the fire they'd lit from the flames of Saraqael's sword (an angel's first mercy but not the last) and hoped they'd be all right.  
  
He thought the new world was beautiful, with its shadows and storms and wild beasts. The humans had fire for now, to keep them warm and give them light and keep the monsters at bay. Samandriel had seen what Metatron was writing in the Book of Life.  
  
He knew civilizations, countries, cities, heroes would rise and fall. He knew he would one day have to decide whether or not to Fall himself.  
  
And he knew, among the heroes and the villains, the damsels in distress and the femmes fatale, the jokers and the liars and the artists and the dreamers, that a sailor named Benny was waiting for him.  
  
And so, when the time came, he'd step down to earth willingly, and with Benny beside him, he would fall.


	12. Chapter 12

Benny and Kevin were forced to wait in the hallway. Dean was Sam's brother, and because he was family, he was allowed into the hospital room. None of them had expected family to show up for Samandriel, because they'd forgotten that when the hospital checked his pockets for his ID, his ID bore the name of his vessel, Matthew Pike. Why it hadn't occurred to any of them that Matthew Pike had a family, Benny didn't know, especially since Sam and Dean had met the family years before.  
  
Larry and Joanie Pike had arrived a few hours before. They'd both come up short when they saw Dean exiting the hospital room Sam and Samandriel were sharing.  
  
"What happened to our boy?" Larry asked. "He left work one day and just – never came home."  
  
"I don't know what happened," Dean said.  
  
Joanie sniffled. "Then why are you here?"  
  
Dean nodded at the door. "My brother's in there."  
  
Larry leaned in, lowered his voice. "Does it have to do with...hunting?"  
  
Dean nodded. "Yeah. It does."  
  
"What's going on?" Joanie asked. "The fire raining down from the sky – was Matt burned?"  
  
"No. But I don't know what happened to him." What Dean didn't say, couldn't say, was whether or not Matt was even still inside that body. Castiel wasn't answering his calls, Kevin had no clue what was going on, and he was worried because his mother wasn't answering her phone either.  
  
The dull ache that had been building in Benny's chest since that first moment when Samandriel stopped screaming, passed out in his arms, ratcheted up another notch every time someone else got to go into his room, and if Benny hurt any more he would probably go numb, because he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move, everything hurt –  
  
Kevin and Benny came alert when the door swung open and Larry and Joanie stepped out. Their expressions were curiously blank; both of them were pale and looked like they'd aged a decade since they'd stepped into their son's hospital room.  
  
"He's awake," Larry said.  
  
Joanie added, "He's asking for someone named Benny."  
  
Benny rose up slowly. "That's me, ma'am." He knew what they saw when they looked at him, a man over a decade their son's senior, with a scruffy face and old, dusty clothes, so he kept his tone polite.  
  
Larry swallowed hard. "He says – he says he's not our son. That he's someone else. Someone named –"  
  
"Samandriel," Benny said softly.  
  
Joanie nodded. Her eyes filled with tears. "He says – he says Mattie's in heaven, and we're all trapped on Earth."   
  
Benny resisted the urge to glance at Kevin, seek assistance. Kevin had read the angel tablet briefly. "I don't know what's going on in Heaven, ma'am."  
  
"He says unless the gates of Heaven are re-opened, I'll never get to see my baby boy again." Joanie fell against her husband, sobbing.  
  
Larry wrapped his arms around her and held her, but his gaze was hollow, his expression blank. He looked as numb as Benny felt.  
  
Larry said, "He says he's human now. What does that even mean?"  
  
Kevin drew in a breath sharply.  
  
Benny felt terror surge through the ache in his chest, shatter it, galvanize it, send it burning through his veins. "Can I see him?"  
  
Joanie was crying too hard to answer. Larry nodded. Before Benny went into the hospital room, he whispered to Kevin,  
  
"Get Dean down here now. We have a serious problem."  
  
Then he took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the hospital room and stepped inside.


	13. Chapter 13

"How do angels have birthdays?" Benny asked. He and Samandriel were trailing along behind Sam, Dean, and Castiel as they loaded up on birthday supplies at the grocery store. Tomorrow was Castiel's birthday party.  
  
"We don't," Samandriel said quietly. "We are made, not born. When He spoke our Names, we came into being, fully formed and ready to serve."  
  
"Like being hatched out of an egg," Benny said. They had wings. It made some sense.  
  
"No, not quite." But Samandriel looked amused rather than put out by Benny's oversimplification of some undoubtedly complicated-beyond-words process.  
  
"Then how does Castiel have a birthday?"  
  
"He doesn't, in the traditional sense." Samandriel looked at some brightly colored streamers wistfully. "He could be celebrating on his vessel's birthday, or maybe the day he rescued Dean, or the day he first came to earth, or the first time he became human, or –"  
  
"The first day I chose them," Castiel said. "To side with them against both Heaven and Hell. To be part of Team Free Will."  
  
Samandriel smiled at Benny. "There you go. He chose his own birthday."  
  
"And you?" Benny asked. "What would you choose?" He knows when Matthew Pike's birthday is, saw it on his driver's license one day.  
  
"If you say _the day I met you_ I might barf," Dean grumbled, but he'd slowed so he could be part of their conversation. His little hand basket was overflowing with supplies. Sam was cradling the rest in his arms,  
  
"No." Samandriel's expression went blank, and his eyes flashed as he thought quickly. It was uncanny and inhuman, but fleeting, and thankfully no one noticed. "It's difficult to describe, because I have to convert the date through several calendar systems that are now lost to human knowledge."  
  
"Rub it in, why don't you, You're so much older and smarter." Dean rolled his eyes.  
  
"April seventh," Samandriel said.  
  
"Why that date?" Even Sam had fallen back to listen.  
  
"It was the day I stood with Castiel and watched Adam and Eve depart from the Garden of Eden, and I saw all of time stretching out in front of me, and I saw...you. And I decided, when the time came, to Fall as well." Samandriel smiled.  
  
The other three stared at him, stunned.  
  
Samandriel put a package of candles on top of Dean's precariously arranged pile in the handbkaset.  
  
"I remember that day," Castiel said. "It was a terrible day. Father was so angry. Most of the Garden was ruined and lost forever."  
  
"Only most of it," Samandriel said, "and I think what came after was far more beautiful." He slipped his hand into Benny's. "Now come on, we have to decorate for Castiel's party. We'd best do it before Charlie arrives, or it'll be Dr. Who-themed again, like our last Party For No Good Reason."  
  
Sam glanced at his watch. "Right! Better go."


	14. Chapter 14

"If you have any advice, I'd really appreciate it," Samandriel was saying as Dean rounded the corner.  
  
Sam and Samandriel were sitting at the big table in the study. Benny was nowhere to be seen.  
  
Sam looked highly uncomfortable, and Dean knew immediately was Samandriel was asking about.  
  
"Just...ease into it," Sam said. "It's kind of hard to explain. You have to feel how much pressure is the right pressure. If you go too fast, you could break something. But if you go too slow, you won't connect right."  
  
Samandriel nodded eagerly. "And?"  
  
"And...well...there's only so much I can tell you. You just have to _do_ it," Sam said.  
  
"Okay. Thank you." Samandriel stood up and walked away, expression thoughtful, and Sam looked unaccountably relieved.  
  
Dean avoided Samandriel for the next two days.  
  
He figured the danger had passed until he came across Benny having a serious conversation with Sam, who again looked highly uncomfortable.  
  
"Look, just...just do it, okay? There's only so much I can tell you. Words are insufficient. He has to physically experience it. If you two keep dancing around the issue, you're just going to freak him out and he'll panic and when he finally does try it, it'll be a disaster, and he'll never want to do it again."  
  
"Easy, Sam," Benny said, raising his hands placatingly. "I didn't mean to stress you out. You're right. Has Samandriel bothered you about this too? I know he's so nervous."  
  
"I just – being caught in the middle is awkward, okay? That was always Dean's thing. And now I feel awful for every time I put him there." Sam scrubbed a hand over his face.  
  
"I'll talk to Samandriel," Benny said. "I'll handle it."  
  
Dean fled and hid from all of his housemates save Castiel for days.  
  
Unfortunately, he was present when Benny and Samandriel decided to take the plunge. He saw Benny leading Samandriel away by the hand, saw Samandriel smiling and bouncing a little with excitement.  
  
Dean fled from the bunker, went to play pool a couple of towns over. Everything would be done by the time he went back, he was sure of it.  
  
So he was very concerned when he came into the bunker and Sam, Samandriel, and Benny were all sitting around the research table, Sam reading a tome, Benny poking on a laptop, and Samandriel looking miserable. Samandriel had rapidly-healing bruises on his face.  
  
Dean hauled Benny out of his seat and into the kitchen, slammed the door behind him.  
  
"What the hell did you do to Samandriel?" He shook Benny roughly. "He has bruises on his face. I get that he's an angel and kind of immortal, but he's also a kid in a lot of ways, and if you – if you _hurt_ during his first time, you really are a monster."  
  
Benny blinked at him. "What?"  
  
"What the hell did you do to Samandriel?"  
  
"I tried to teach him how to drive a stick-shift and he crashed the thing and nearly killed us," Benny said. "He took the brunt of the impact, which is why his face is all messed up. Now he refuses to ever drive again. It was only his first time behind the wheel."  
  
And suddenly all those overheard conversations made sense.  
  
Dean let Benny go, stepped back. "Oh. Sorry. I just –"  
  
"You thought I'd hurt Samandriel on purpose? I'm frankly insulted."  
  
"I'm sorry, I just –"  
  
"I'm more insulted that you think it took me that long to seal the deal with him," Benny said, and he was grinning.  
  
Dean winced. "You know what? Sorry. I was an ass and I made assumptions. But seriously, TMI." And he fled from the kitchen.  
  
Three days later, he found himself giving Samandriel another driving lesson, and that time, no one crashed the car.


	15. Chapter 15

Benny didn't know what to do. He could only stand by helplessly and watch as Samandriel drifted through each day, gaze distant, limbs languid, like ever motion was effort, like he was moving through water, like Benny was watching him from a different plane of existence.  
  
But they were solidly on the same plane now. Samandriel had lost his grace. Castiel had lost his grace. Metatron had tricked Dean and Castiel, and now fallen angels, some graceless, some at full-power and enraged, were roaming the earth, seeking revenge on Castiel and his little band of friends.  
  
Even though Samandriel was more present than ever before – at meals because he needed food now, at the washing machine because he needed to do laundry now, in bed beside Benny because he needed to sleep now – he was also completely out of reach. In losing his grace he'd lost half of himself, and Benny was terrified that it was the half that had tethered the two of them together.  
  
So he helped Kevin research (because as a vampire he didn't have to sleep, though he could), and he hunted with Dean, and he helped Mrs. Tran look after Sam, who'd almost been killed be The Trials, and he wondered if Samandriel would ever come back to him.  
  
And then one day they were in the kitchen, slicing tomatoes to make tomato rice soup for Sam, and Samandriel cut himself.  
  
He stared at the blood welling in his finger for a moment, wide-eyed, shocked. And then his whole body shook, and he was blinking rapidly, and his eyes were filling with tears, and Benny realized, this was his first time being injured as a human.  
  
"Benny, I – what do I do? It hurts, it's bleeding, I –"  
  
Samandriel's chest heaved. Benny reached out, tugged Samandriel into his arms, and held him tightly, let him cry. When it was done, Benny showed Samandriel how to wash the cut, and put a bandaid on it, and then Benny kissed it better, and when Samandriel smiled at him, some of the old light was back in his eyes, and Benny knew that if he reached out, Samandriel would take his hand.


	16. Chapter 16

When Samandriel came into the library carrying his baseball glove and a dusty old baseball, Dean groaned.   
  
"Look, I get it, you and Benny have this blast-from-the-past role-playing thing going on. That's your business. I don't care what you do in your spare time in your rooms or in the outfield or whatever. I just don't want to hear about it."  
  
Samandriel gazed at Dean with guileless eyes. Where Cas usually just looked clueless about human culture, Samandriel looked sweetly, innocently curious.  
  
"I want to play actual baseball," Samandriel said. "I've never played before."  
  
Dean raised his eyebrows. "You mean you've never played baseball before?"  
  
"I mean I've never played games before."  
  
"Never?"  
  
"Not ones with more than one person per team," Samandriel said. Then he bit his lip and added, "Not ones you want to hear about."  
  
Dean winced. Somehow, without saying a word, Samandriel had broken the TMI boundary yet again. "Did Matt ever play baseball?"  
  
"Not that I can find in his memories."  
  
Dean was pretty sure he was going to regret this, but, he asked it anyway. "Does Benny like to play baseball?" Was this some kind of weird fetish on Samandriel's part, to do everything Benny liked.  
  
"I don't know," Samandriel said. "But as I understand it, baseball is America's pastime, and I want to understand why."  
  
That seemed fair enough. If anyone should teach Samandriel about American culture, it was Dean, not Sam. Sam would probably corrupt the poor kid into thinking ballet was appropriate culture for a red-blooded young American male. Which Samandriel was.  
  
Sort of.  
  
Dean smiled and stood up. "Let's go to the park."  
  
They ended up taking Kevin and Mrs. Tran with them. Apparently Mrs. Tran had played softball in college and had a mean fast pitch. Because Samandriel was an angel, he could hit a home run every time, but he had trouble keeping his head in the game, because none of the rules made sense to him. Sam and Charlie eventually arrived, and they each joined opposite teams, which resulted in friendly insults of "Ginger!" and "Moose!" being bandied back and forth.  
  
Dean figured he had it in the bag, because he had Samandriel and Charlie on his team, and Charlie was a pretty solid hit herself. Kevin, Mrs. Tran, and Sam backed up when she stepped up to the plate.  
  
And then Benny arrived, and suddenly Samandriel was awful at batting, needed Benny to show him how every time he stepped up to bat, and Benny fell for it, hook, line and sinker. He wrapped himself around Samandriel to show him how to hold the bat, how to swing it. Dean couldn't decide if it was lucky or awful that most people assumed Benny was Samandriel's father or uncle or older brother or something other than what he was. At least no one was objecting to Benny's coaching sessions.  
  
Dean hoped that with Benny on his team, they could keep the lead they'd eked out now that Samandriel's batting was drastically worse. Charlie hadn't called him out on it, and Mrs. Tran had wasted no time in heaping friendly insults on Samandriel's "poor" batting skills.  
  
He hadn't counted on Garth showing up and joining Sam's team, and he hadn't counted on Garth being able to run so damn fast.  
  
And if, after the humans tired out, Samandriel and Benny slipped away to the far, far outfields to lie in the grass and cloud-watch (and maybe cloud-seed a little), Dean didn't mind. Let the kids have their fun.


	17. Chapter 17

"What," Benny asked one night while they were curled up in bed together, "is the one thing you love most?"

"Besides you?" Samandriel nestled under his chin and sighed happily. Now that he was mortal, he was touch-hungry, which made Dean endlessly, amusingly uncomfortable, but Benny didn't care.

"I'm a person, not a thing," Benny said.

Samandriel laughed softly. Now that he was human, he laughed more. It was a beautiful sound, but Benny would trade it for Samandriel's grace in a heartbeat.

All thoughts of Samandriel's grace vanished when he slid a hand down Benny's body. "What about this?"

Benny rolled his hips up into the caress. "You've got a dirty mind." But he couldn't help grinning.

Samandriel slid his hand upward again, curled his fingers against Benny's chest, over his heart. "This is the thing I love most. Because I know it beats for me, and as long as it's beating, you'll stay with me."

And Benny couldn't help it. He rolled over and pulled Samandriel into a kiss, and he felt Samandriel's heart beating in time with his own.


	18. Chapter 18

Kevin's suggestion that Samandriel get out and socialize with other people his "age" to learn more about human culture and society backfired when Samandriel joined a book group populated almost entirely by teenage girls and young women who thought he was the cutest thing since Hello Kitty and seemed to immediately know that he was gay (-ish; angels had no inherent gender).  
  
He read every book they assigned voraciously in the space of a single day, no matter how long the book, and then peppered Sam and Kevin with questions about the book. Kevin's answers always involved too many allusions to pop culture to be helpful to Samandriel. Sam's answers were miniature college literature essays, and Samandriel took them to heart, which resulted in plenty of the girls asking him for help with their homework, which he was awful at unless he asked Sam (and Dean really thought Sam ought to start charging for his tutoring services, indirect though they were; they could use the cash).  
  
Samandriel enjoyed his book group immensely, and Benny decided he was all right with Samandriel having this peculiar thing he enjoyed, because no one else seemed to really share his love of fishing, and he was glad when Samandriel didn't complain about him taking off once in a while to be alone and catch some fish.  
  
The backfire happened when Charlie cruised through town and accepted an invitation to join Samandriel at his book group, since she was the only girl in the house (Mrs. Tran notwithstanding). Charlie and Samandriel departed at the usual time, but they returned half an hour earlier than usual. Samandriel looked pale and anxious, and Charlie – she was trying not to laugh.  
  
"Samandriel?" Benny asked, rising out of the chair he'd been hunched over in, sharing research duties with Sam. "What's wrong?"  
  
"I do not understand," Samandriel said. "It's irrational. Why would an angel ever desire a human? A vampire is clearly the superior choice as a lover – and not just due to basic stamina compatibility. Vampires, as do angels, live forever. They can share a perspective that immortality grants that a mortal could never understand."  
  
Benny blinked. "That's fine logic. What's the problem?"  
  
"The other fan girls highly disagree with Samandriel's shipping choices," Charlie said, giggling gleefully.  
  
"Shipping?" Dean echoed. "What's Samandriel shipping? To who?"  
  
"To whom," Sam corrected absently.  
  
Benny had the sense that neither brother understood what was going on.  
  
Kevin said, "What are you reading in Book Group that has both angels and vampires that can be shipped?"  
  
"Supernatural!" Charlie burst out.  
  
Sam and Dean immediately looked alarmed.  
  
Samandriel pouted. "It's highly inaccurate. In it, I die! Castiel kills me! On Naomi's orders. And Benny – Benny is driven away after he slays a fellow Hunter in defense of his mortal kin. And when I dared suggest that an angel might wish to take on a vampire as a lover, the other girls became very upset and banished me until I 'think on my life choices' and reconsider my position that 'Destiel' is not the OTP."  
  
Castiel poked his head out of the kitchen. "That's not how you pronounce my name."  
  
Sam turned several different colors and covered his mouth. Benny couldn't tell if he was trying not to laugh or about to be sick.  
  
Dean groaned and closed his eyes and literally banged his forehead against the desk.  
  
"Who wrote the books after 'Swan Song'?" Kevin asked.

Samandriel consulted the paperback he had tucked into his jacket. "His name is Beck Winchester."  
  
"Her," Sam muttered, and joined his brother in banging his head against the desk. "Becky Winchester."  
  
"It says 'Beck'." Samandriel held out the book for Sam to see. On the cover were two shirtless men, one with flowing dark hair, the other blond and short. Neither of them looked like any Winchester Benny had ever known.  
  
Benny intervened before Dean or Sam were permanently injured. He wrapped his arms around Samandriel's waist and drew him in for a slow, gentle kiss.  
  
"Don't worry, darlin'," he drawled. "I know you love me, and I'm the only choice for you."  
  
"That's right," Samandriel said, petulant, and kissed him again.  
  
Dean grabbed the forgotten book and headed into the kitchen to set it on fire on the stove.  
  
Next week, Samandriel was back at his book group with a new shipping suggestion: "Sastiel."  
  
Benny heard Dean mutter about needing to get a place of his own.


	19. Chapter 19

"Where's your happy place?" Benny asked. "You know, the place in your head where you go when things get...bad?"  
  
Samandriel considered the plant in front of him. He weeded religiously, and if Benny didn't know better, hadn't seen Samandriel come in day after day with dirty on his hands, he'd have thought angel mojo was being used to keep up their garden.  
  
"Would you like me to show you?" Samandriel asked.  
  
"Show me how?"  
  
Samandriel tugged off his glove, reached for Benny's hand, and they were gone.  
  
Gone from the garden in one instant.  
  
Standing on the deck of a ship the next. Timbers creaked underfoot. Snails snapped overhead. There was blue sky as far as the eye could see, and where it met the sea was far, far distant. Benny could feel the sun on his face in a way he hadn't felt it since he was – human.  
  
He turned.  
  
Men and women in clothes he didn't recognize were bustling about the deck of the ship, completely oblivious to him. They were dark-skinned and wore flowing robes Benny associated with desert-dwellers, but they moved about the ship with confidence and ease.  
  
"Where are we?" Benny asked, though he suspected _when are we?_ might have been an equally valid line of inquiry.  
  
"This is the personal heaven of Shmuel, the son of a trader from Jerusalem. His family crossed the sea many times. He remembers their journeys fondly." Samandriel tipped his head back and closed his eyes, spread his arms, and Benny knew if he could see them, Samandriel's wings would have been unfurled in the breeze. "It took me a long time to find this heaven, but it's always been my favorite."  
  
Benny gazed longingly at the rigging where several boys and girls were climbing with monkey-like agility, their experience and familiarity clear.   
  
"How long has this been your happy place?" Benny asked.  
  
"Since I found it," Samandriel said.  
  
"Before or after you met me?"  
  
"Before." Samandriel opened his eyes and smiled. "I knew you would be the perfect person to share it with."  
  
"Do they know we're here?" Benny stepped back automatically when a woman carrying a basket of bread came toward him.  
  
"Not if we don't want them to. But sometimes, they let me help them sail."  
  
Benny kissed Samandriel on the cheek and said, "Let's help them sail."


	20. Chapter 20

Benny stared at Samandriel, baffled. “Really? Before me, you’d never been kissed?”  
  
“Not me,” Samandriel said. He shrugged and kept on weeding.  
  
Benny supposed it was a good thing, that they were having this conversation in the garden instead of inside where Dean might overhear and have a noseblood or, worse, Sam would try to educate Samandriel in the ways of humans. Samandriel was learning well enough on his own, thanks, and for anything he was lacking, he had Benny.  
  
“Matt had been kissed, obviously,” Samandriel said, “but not me. Angels don’t kiss.”  
  
“Then how do angels express affection?” Benny couldn’t imagine hanging around for millenia and never kissing anyone. As a vampire, he’d imagined hanging around for millenia often.  
  
Samandriel slewed him a sidelong glance. “You’re thinking like a human again.” Angels seemed to see vampires and werewolves and other former humans as basically humans and, below a certain age, lumped them all into one category. “Just because we are family and call each other brother and sister doesn’t mean we feel - or express - affection for each other. That was not our purpose.”  
  
There it was again, the dreaded purpose. Being created for a specific task was baffling to Benny. That humans were tools first and people second was nauseating to think about.  
  
“Then you never showed affection for anyone? Before me?”  
  
“We are allowed to care for the humans we watch over,” Samandriel said. “Just...not care too much.” Not so much he’d interfere when their fates involved death and destruction, he meant.  
  
“How would you show affection for a human, then?”  
  
Samandriel rose up, offered a hand. “Let me show you.”  
  
Benny obeyed automatically. When Samandriel pulled Benny close, arms around his waist, Benny said, “This is a hug.”  
  
“No. Close your eyes.”  
  
Benny did, because he trust Samandriel.  
  
What happened next he couldn’t adequately describe, because he had no words for it. One moment he was in Samandriel’s arms, the next he was in outer space, he was beyond space, he was in all dozen dimensions at once, he was color and light and sound and _time_ , and through it all, he was held together by one single thread: Samandriel loved him.  
  
And then Benny opened his eyes and Samandriel had stepped back and they were standing in the garden again.  
  
“What just happened?” Benny demanded.  
  
Samandriel smiled. “I covered you with my wings.”


	21. Chapter 21

“Just because I’m immortal and you’re immortal doesn’t mean this is our tune,” Benny said.  
  
Samandriel was huddled on one of the chairs in the library, head tilted, listening to music coming from Kevin’s laptop. He blinked at Benny. “What?”  
  
“This song. A Thousand Years. Super sappy. And also, its source material - sparkly vampires - is kind of insulting. Just so you know.” Benny sat beside Samandriel and sipped absently at a little pouch of blood. AB Negative was always the way to go.  
  
“Vampires don’t sparkle.” Samandriel looked confused.  
  
“You know that and I know that.”  
  
“What do sparkly vampires have to do with this song?”  
  
Benny raised his eyebrows. “You mean no one’s inflicted you with Twilight?”  
  
“I want to learn how to play the cello,” Samandriel said. “Kevin said he’d teach me. I want to learn [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaTQ5-XfMM).”  
  
“...Oh,” Benny said. He blinked. “Um. Well, when you put it that way...this is a pretty song.”  
  
Samandriel smiled at him. “Can you play the piano? The song is for two people.”  
  
Benny looked at him for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I haven’t played piano in a long time. If you want me to learn, I’ll try.”  
  
The way Samandriel’s face lit up made Benny’s chest tighten.  
  
“Question is, though, where are we going to find a piano?”  
  
Of course, the Men of Letters had an entire basement room dedicated to music. Dean was thrilled to find an old guitar. And Sam - Sam was thrilled to find volumes of music-based magic.


	22. Chapter 22

"You got him a kitten?" Dean cried.  
  
Sam winced. Dean hadn't hit that note since he hit puberty.  
  
Benny, standing beside a pile of cat gear - litter box, scratching post, sleeping crate, cat food, food and water bowls, toys, a _blanket_ \- nodded. "I did."  
  
"I'm allergic to cats," Dean hissed, and, as if to emphasize his point, sneezed. "Also, you're damn whipped. What the hell were you thinking?"  
  
"Not hell," Benny said, and nodded. There, in the corner, Samandriel was curled up in one of the armchairs, studying a tome on The Darkness. A little grey striped tabby kitten was curled up on his shoulder, tucked against his throat and sleeping.  
  
Samandriel was cute enough as it was, with his wide blue eyes and floppy hair and freckles. Samandriel with a kitten was - well, there was a reason Charlie had snapped a dozen pictures and gotten a thousand hits in the first five minutes after she uploaded it to Instagram.   
  
Mrs. Tran and Kevin were clearing out a space for it in Samandriel's room, the room he no longer really used because he basically lived with Benny.  
  
Dean took in the sight and sighed. "Fine. Sammy, make sure you get some antihistamines on the next supply run. And - just don't give the cat an embarrassing name, all right?"  
  
Sam nodded and added it to the shopping list he kept on his phone.  
  
Dean hit an ever higher note when he discovered that everyone else in the bunker agreed that the cat should be named Catstiel.


	23. Chapter 23

It's Halloween, and Samandriel should ridiculous in a white shift with costume feathered wings strapped to his back and a halo pinned in his hair, but he looks, well, angelic, and Benny is almost ashamed to kiss him.  
  
Benny knows he looks completely ridiculous in the costume Charlie gleefully selected for him (she picked costumes for everyone at the Bunker), because he's dressed as Dracula, satin cape and widow's peak and all.  
  
Samandriel has no qualms about kissing him, though, and once again it ends up on Instagram with a thousand hits in the first five minutes, and Charlie is already making plans about their costumes for next year.


	24. Chapter 24

Because food is such a basic necessity, everyone should have basic skill in it, or so Benny thinks.  
  
Everyone else is baffled that Benny can cook at all, because he doesn't need to eat food (not anymore, at any rate).  
  
Benny likes to cook because Samandriel likes to lick the spoons, try out new tastes with his indescribable angel senses, and watching Samandriel enjoy food is almost divine.


	25. Chapter 25

Here was something they never taught you in monster school: demons taste horrible.  
  
And angels taste delicious.  
  
Benny had ripped out the throats of enough demons to know that he’d rather drink a sewer than voluntarily feed on a demon. Demons never expected that, too used to fighting hunters and other mostly-human combatants. Never expected Benny to break out the fangs and show them what a real monster was made of.  
  
The first time Samandriel was wounded in battle, Benny was snapped out of his blood frenzy by a scent on the air.  
  
It was like golden sunlight and the sweetest summer apples and a cool breeze on his skin and the perfect cool glass of water on a hot day.  
  
It was angel blood.  
  
And then the demon nearly took Benny’s head off, and he threw himself back into the fight, but his heart was pounding and his head was spinning and when the fight was done, Samandriel healed himself with a brief gesture and a flare of blue grace, and the smell - the heavenly smell - was gone.  
  
That night, they lay curled in each other’s arms, and Benny was hyperaware of the way Samandriel’s pulse beat gently beneath the delicate skin of his throat, and when he tilted his head just so, Benny could lean in and nuzzle and bite and --  
  
Samandriel turned toward him and smiled. “It’s all right. I trust you, Benny.”  
  
Benny didn’t trust himself.  
  
Samandriel leaned in and kissed him, and Benny closed his eyes and held on tight and hoped he didn’t drown, hoped he didn’t bite.


	26. Chapter 26

"Let's go to the fair, Samandriel says." Dean, Sam, Samandriel, Benny, and Castiel are all in one cell. Charlie is in another. Dean hopes she managed to get in contact with someone who can spring them.  
  
"I've never been to a fair, Samandriel says. Bats his eyelashes at Benny. Gives Sammy the puppy-dog look. Who cleans house at the carnival games at the fair? The vampire and the angels, with their superhuman reflexes and strength. Who gets in trouble for messing with already-rigged carnival games? The humans." Dean's sporting a black eye and is a little punch-drunk.  
  
The guard at the booth at the end of the hall raises his eyebrows.  
  
"He's been hit a whole lot," Sam says. "In fact, he probably needs some medical attention."  
  
"Remind me again," Dean asks, lolling against Sam, "why the angels don't just zap us out of here?"  
  
"Because we don't want anyone to know we're angels," Castiel says in a low voice.  
  
Rescue comes in the form of Mrs. Tran, dressed to the nines in an expensive suit and carrying a leather briefcase and telling the guard she's their attorney. Kevin trails behind her, posing as her paralegal, and carrying some smoke bombs to facilitate their get-away.  
  
Stupid rigged games at stupid fairs.  
  
Dean never got the chance to buy Samandriel some cotton candy.


	27. Chapter 27

Benny snatched the vial from Samandriel, hissing, "Are you insane? We have to do this right. I don't want to end us prematurely, you hear me?"  
  
Samandriel took a deep breath (stupid, neither of them needed to breathe, but he'd been around Sam too long, whose deep breaths were the equivalent of Dean's cussing up a storm). "I'm not an idiot, and I'm not illiterate. I read the entire spell recipe through before I started. And I am perfectly capable of decanting a phoenix tear. So if you give that back -"  
  
"This is phoenix saliva, not a tear. You were going to add it to an accelerant!"  
  
Samandriel narrowed his eyes, frowned. "What? Let me see."  
  
Benny spun the vial around so Samandriel could see the label, only it said...phoenix tears. "Oh. Sorry. I -"  
  
"I understand. We're in a tense situation." Samandriel plucked the vial from him and decanted a single tear into the bowl. "But we will be fine."  
  
"Have faith."  
  
"That's rich, coming from an angel like you."  
  
Samandriel's gaze turned darker, more heated. "Well, you wouldn't like angels not like me, would you? Now stop fussing. The sooner this spell is completed, the sooner we can get back to the Bunker and celebrate our success."  
  
Benny swallowed hard. "Right. Celebrate. What's next?"  
  
Samandriel consulted the recipe on his phone. "Ashes of a yeti."


	28. Chapter 28

"I think he'd look good in a blue shirt," Charlie said, holding one up.  
  
Samandriel, who'd been wearing the same red-and-white Wiener Hut shirt for countless days (the same way Castiel wore his one outfit eternally, no laundry days in sight), stared down at the t-shirt she was holding against his chest and shrugged.  
  
"They make his blue eyes really pop," Charlie continued.  
  
Samandriel raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Not really pop. Not literally pop," Sam said hastily.  
  
Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. "Look, this isn't a fashion show. Let's just get the kid some more normal clothes and move on out of here, all right? We have Crowley to deal with."  
  
"If his eyes do 'pop'," Castiel said, abusing air quotes, "doesn't that make him too noticeable? Hunters are supposed to be discreet."  
  
"Like your get-up is discreet," Charlie began.  
  
Benny sighed and shoved another t-shirt at Samandriel. "Go see if this one fits, kid." He winced. Everyone called Samandriel 'kid'. It was his face, but he was older than Benny, older than any creature Benny had ever known.  
  
Still, Samandriel accepted the shirt and went into the changing room. When he emerged, he was still wearing the red cap. Dean snatched it off his head, ordered him to do a little turn so Charlie could inspect the fit. When she deemed it appropriate, Dean ordered Sam into the racks to grab a dozen shirts in the same size in a bunch of different (neutral, easy-to-clean) colors.  
  
Benny added the blue shirt Charlie had selected to the pile, though. It did make Samandriel's eyes look unbelievably blue.


	29. Chapter 29

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Castiel asked. Hannah and he exchanged a look Dean couldn't read.  
  
"Should we even be making this decision without Benny's input?" Sam frowned disapprovingly.  
  
"What would it serve, to even do that?" Charlie cast Samandriel a pleading look. "I mean, Benny's badass because he did all those years in Purgatory. And if you go back and save him, that means he saves Andrea, and you two never - "  
  
"He loves her," Samandriel said quietly. "And I can do this for him."  
  
"Sounds like a bad idea." Dean shook his head. "We need Benny. Without Benny in Purgatory, how do I even get out?"  
  
Sam went white at the notion.  
  
"It will make him happy," Samandriel said. He stood up, threw his shoulders back, and there, on the far wall of the Bunker, was the silhouette of his wings.   
  
"Samandriel, no!" Kevin cried, but there was a beating of mighty wings, and Samandriel was gone.  
  
"What the hell did he do?" Dean demanded.  
  
"There," Mrs. Tran said quietly. "Now you know how it feels, when you two choose each other over the rest of the world."  
  
Benny poked his head into the kitchen. "Hey, where's Samandriel?"  
  
And the world dissolved.  
  


*

  
People in town thought it was highly improper, for such an old woman to be going about with such a young man, even if Benny was incredibly devoted to old Andrea. The care he paid her, the patience and love he gave her went beyond the bounds of sanity. Sometimes, though, the way he talked to her, it sounded as if they'd lived a long time together, and he was trapped by his youthfulness as she marched toward her impending death. But she wouldn't let him 'change' her, whatever that meant. She couldn't bear what she would become.  
  


*

  
Kevin ran. And ran. And ran. He never saw his mother again.  
  


*

  
The demons left Mrs. Tran alone eventually, when it became clear her son was never coming back. No matter. Kevin Tran died eight months later, and the next prophet was called.  
  


*

  
When Don came back from the dead, Sam hit the road. He'd tried to give up hunting, he really had, but if he didn't have Amelia and he didn't have Dean, he had nothing, nothing except hunting, so he called Garth, and together they headed into the night.  
  


*

  
In Purgatory, Dean and Castiel ran. And they fought and ran and fought and ran.  
  
And then the angels came, Hannah and Samandriel and so many others, led by shining Naomi. Hannah and Samandriel were lost in the skirmish, but Castiel made it topside, and he had a job. Protect the angel tablet. At all costs.  
  
He never saw Dean again.  
  


*

  
Charlie Bradbury changed her name, moved on, found a new job, found new hobbies and new friends. Every once in a while she'd turn to talk to someone, ask one a question or trade a dirty joke with another or flirt with yet another to fluster him, only they weren't there, and she didn't know who Kevin and Castiel and Samandriel and Benny and Mrs. Tran were, and she didn't understand why she missed them.


	30. Chapter 30

When Samandriel came into the kitchen the morning after the great Dean-and-Benny shopping spree, Charlie stopped him in his tracks.  
  
“What are you wearing?”  
  
“My new clothes.” Samandriel beamed and turned, modeling for her.  
  
“AC/DC? Plaid? What are you, Dean Junior?”  
  
Samandriel frowned, smoothed a hand over his t-shirt. “Are my clothes wrong?”  
  
“You look like a hunter.”  
  
“Well, I am a hunter now, aren’t I?”  
  
“No, you’re like Cas, an angel who hangs out with hunters. This is ridiculous.” Charlie grabbed her car keys, went and dragged Kevin out of bed, and together they herded Samandriel, who was protesting about needing to start a pot of coffee, into Charlie’s car.  
  
They returned four hours later with some skinny jeans, fun Converse sneakers, and an array of anime and video game t-shirts.  
  
Dean, once he stopped berating the three of them for making him worry because he didn’t know where they were (Mrs. Tran stood in the background, smirking all the while), was horrified at Samandriel’s new attire.  
  
Mrs. Tran said she’d handle it, plus she had a credit card, so the next day, she took Samandriel shopping.  
  
He came back looking like a prep school escapee, which made Dean call him a tool but Sam pointed out was useful. On investigations, they could say Samandriel was their college intern. People would buy that.   
  
Benny hadn’t seen the harm in letting Dean pick clothes - sturdy clothes, clothes that would generally go unnoticed, that were easily replaced. But then he saw how good Samandriel looked in clothes that actually fit, and how good Samandriel looked in nice clothes, like button-down shirts and jackets that flared over his hips.  
  
So he took Samandriel shopping the next day, and Dean took one look at Samandriel, called him a Newsie, and threw his hands up, walking away.  
  
Later, Dean said, “What use are all those clothes anyway? He can’t take them all on the road.”  
  
“He doesn’t have to. Some blend-in-as-a-kid clothes, some hunting clothes, an intern outfit, he’s good to go,” Sam said. “He can leave the rest at home, obviously.”  
  
And Dean blinked. “Right. Home.”


	31. Chapter 31

Benny stared at the tickets. "Supernatural: The Musical? You're kidding, right?"  
  
Samandriel said, "Dean is very fond of music. He's very musical, isn't me?"  
  
Charlie made a choking noise.  
  
Kevin said, "For certain values of the word 'musical', sure."  
  
Benny frowned. "This is like that fanfiction, isn't it? Are Samandriel and I in it?"  
  
"No," Sam said.  
  
Benny raised his eyebrows. "You've seen it?"  
  
"Yes," Chuck said, "and it's great. I promise."  
  
Dean raised his eyebrows. " _You've_ seen it?"  
  
Samandriel turned big eyes on Benny. "Can we go? Please?"  
  
And that was how Benny found himself on the front row of a high school auditorium, watching Supernatural: The Musical, in its extended run.


	32. Chapter 32

Kevin peered over Samandriel's shoulder and read his careful handwriting.   
  
"'You're my prince, my hero, and my heart'. Ummm...is that for Benny?"  
  
Samandriel nodded. "Yes."  
  
"For Valentine's Day?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"And that's what you want to put in a card for him?"  
  
"I have studied much source material, and this seems most appropriate," Samandriel said.  
  
Kevin looked at the stack of Sweet Valley novels next to Samandriel's elbow and wondered what other weird crap the Men of Letters had kept around that was not at all useful to the pursuit of the Supernatural.  
  
"Right. Well, you know Benny's a guy, right?"  
  
"As am I."  
  
Ish. Angels had no inherent gender, just the gender they chose when they landed in a vessel. But that was another discussion for another time. "Well, that's not the kind of thing you'd write to a guy."  
  
"But in the books -"  
  
"You're not a teenage girl, Samandriel. You should write something more -"  
  
"Sweet?"  
  
"No! Benny's a vampire. So you should write something like - like -" Kevin had done great in AP Lit, but he was no poet and no romantic. Song lyrics were usually a winner, though. Ludo always had great songs. " 'I'm your servant, my immortal / pale and perfect, such unholy heaving / the statues close their eyes, the room is changing / break my skin and drain me."  
  
"Benny becomes distressed when I offer to let him drink from me."  
  
Whoa, TMI. "Well, how about...'Oh please, say to me / You'll let me be your man / And please, say to me / You'll let me hold your hand.'" There. Lyrics from a man's perspective. Better than from a girl's perspective. Benny would probably miss a Beatles reference.  
  
"But Benny already lets me hold his hand."  
  
Kevin sighed. "You know what? Write what you want. It's your Valentine's card."  
  
He deeply, deeply regretted that sentiment when he came home one day and Benny was dressed like a Disney Prince and kissing Samandriel - who was dressed like a renaissance page boy - in the hallway outside the bedrooms.


	33. Chapter 33

Samandriel curled his fingers through Benny's.  
  
"Thank you," he said. "Sam always says an art museum is a very romantic date. I've always wanted to see Boticelli's work in person. The pictures on the Internet don't do it justice."  
  
He tipped his head back and stared at the Birth of Venus.  
  
Benny blinked down at their joined hands.  
  
Dean, crouched in front of a display case with a cutting torch, cast an incredulous look over his shoulder.   
  
"Date? I didn't suffer a damn ten-hour plane ride for a date."  
  
They were breaking into the museum to retrieve an artifact that was a necessary component for a spell.  
  
"It is a lovely painting, though," Benny said, grinning.  
  
Dean's scowl deepened.   
  
Samandriel didn't notice.  
  
Sam came careening around the corner. "Hey, knock it off with the torch. I downed the guard and got this out of his pocket." He brandished a folded piece of paper.  
  
Dean snatched it from him. "You got the combo for the security pad? I'd be pleased with you, but right now I hate you."  
  
"Me?" Sam looked hurt. "Why?"  
  
Benny raised his and Samandriel's joined hands.  
  
Samandriel beamed. "You were right, Sam. An art museum is very romantic." And he leaned up to kiss Benny.  
  
Sam smiled, pleased.  
  
And the alarms went off.


	34. Chapter 34

"No," Dean said, "you cannot teleport to where Sam and Benny are. That totally defeats the purpose of this exercise."  
  
Samandriel hung his head, and Kevin swore that if his wings were visible, they'd be drooping.  
  
Dean started to turn away, and Samandriel reached into his pocket.  
  
Dean whipped back around, held out a hand. "And gimme your phone. You're not texting him or snapchatting him or whatever the hell you kids call it these days."  
  
Samandriel surrendered his cell phone with a pout.  
  
Dean pocketed the cell phone, stomped over to his tent, and hid it, probably in his balled up dirty socks. Then he stomped back over to the fire and said, "Now, sit up and make a s'more. You're going to learn to love camping if it kills you."


	35. Chapter 35

"I love you like whoa," Samandriel said, and pressed a kiss to the tip of Benny's nose. Then he sat back and resumed sharpening knives.  
  
Benny blinked. "I'm sorry, come again? Dean, what does 'like whoa' mean?"  
  
"Look it up on urbandictionary.com," Dean said. He was loading shotgun shells with rock salt.  
  
"No, never look anything up on urban dictionary," Sam broke in.  
  
Dean sighed. "Charlie! Have you been teaching Samandriel pop culture references again?"  
  
Charlie breezed into the library. "Did I hear my illustrious name?" She came up short. "Look at all of these weapons. You guys are armed like whoa."  
  
Samandriel beamed. "See? Like whoa."


	36. Chapter 36

"Well? Does he pass muster?" It was Cas's first time taking the lead on a hunt, and Dean was nervous, but when Samandriel stepped out of the bathroom, he was wearing jeans, a button-down shirt, a blazer, and a pair of glasses, and he looked like a wide-eyed, confused student.  
  
"Perfect," Sam said. He wasn't lying. They needed to bait the werewolf - who had some kind of reverse Jack The Ripper fetish, murdering beautiful innocent boys instead of female prostitutes - and dressed as he was, Samandriel made perfect bait.  
  
Kevin had rustled up one of his old school satchels, stuffed a couple of nonfiction books and a defunct tablet into it, and Samandriel's outfit was complete.  
  
"Great," Dean said. "Let's establish our surveillance perimeter, pick a path for Samandriel to walk, and then -"  
  
Benny lunged, cupped Samandriel's face in his hands, and kissed him. Thoroughly. Samandriel whimpered and reached up, fisted his hands in Benny's jacket, and kissed him back.  
  
"Get a room," Mrs. Tran grumbled.   
  
"...And he totally ruined the innocent look." Sam sighed. "Does anyone have a comb? We need to fix Samandriel's hair. Benny! Stop that! Under _no circumstances_ can Samandriel go out there with a big old hickie on his neck. Benny! Dammit, Kevin, go find your old school uniform."  
  
"Someone has a glasses fetish." Kevin rolled his eyes but went to his room to dig up his school uniform.  
  
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Seriously. Get a room."  
  
Cas said, "I thought the glasses made him look younger."


	37. Chapter 37

Samandriel stepped out of the dressing room and did a little turn, smiling. Benny leaned in the doorway of the dressing room, smirking.  
  
"That shirt looks great on you," Charlie said.   
  
Sam cleared his throat. "Just so you know, we can tell when you put a muffling charm on a space."  
  
Castiel clarified, "I can tell. Seeing how I'm an angel and all and can sense when other angels use angelic spells."  
  
Dean pressed his lips into a thin, disapproving line. "Also, just because you put up a muffling charm doesn't mean everyone is oblivious to what you're doing. Samandriel, use your angel mojo to magic away those hickies. And Benny, you're banned from the dressing rooms from here on out, or this shopping trip is going to take forever."  
  
"P.S.," Kevin said to Benny, "your fly's undone."


	38. Chapter 38

“I can’t quit you,” Samandriel said.  
  
Dean choked on his coffee.  
  
Samandriel rested his chin in his hand and gazed at Dean.  
  
Dean avoided his gaze and went back to drinking his coffee. He could still feel Samandriel staring at him, though.  
  
Finally, he said, “What?”  
  
“I can’t quit you,” Samandriel said again.   
  
“I heard you the first time.” Dean sure as hell hoped he wasn’t blushing, but chances were Samandriel could sense his change in temperature and heart rate because he was an angel and angels could do creepy things like that.  
  
“What does it mean?” Samandriel asked.  
  
“What does what mean?” Dean was in no position to be trading knowledge with an angel.  
  
“‘I can’t quit you,’” Samandriel said. “Kevin said it’s an expression of affection, but the grammar’s all wrong, and it makes no sense.”  
  
“Actually,” Sam said, sliding into the chair beside Dean, “the grammar’s only a little off, because the characters are rural, but it’s proper old-fashioned grammar to ‘be quit’ of someone, which means to either remove yourself from their presence or their acquaintance. So if you can’t quit someone, you cannot leave them or stop associating with them.”  
  
Samandriel continued to look puzzled. “I don’t see how poor grammar is romantic.”  
  
“Sounds like a man after your own heart, Sam,” Dean muttered. “And what the hell were you thinking, showing him _Brokeback Mountain_?”  
  
“He wanted to see a cowboy movie and I let Charlie pick,” Sam said.  
  
“And that’s where you went wrong. I’ll find my copy of _3:10 to Yuma_.” But Dean smiled at Samandriel and said, “It’s not the bad grammar that’s romantic, it’s the source of the quote, what those two went through while in love or whatever. I mean, some romantic sayings make no sense at all, but the ladies love them. Not that you care about the ladies. But...here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”  
  
Samandriel blinked. “Why look at me? And I’m not a kid.”  
  
Dean groaned. Sam laughed. Mrs. Tran came wandering through the library, humming _As Time Goes By_.  
  
To add insult to injury, Charlie wandered after her, and she said, “Play it again, Sam.”


	39. Chapter 39

The kid looked like an easy mark. He was tall but skinny, young. Had freckles. And he was wearing a ridiculous red-and-white striped shirt and a red-and-white cap. Must have just gotten off of a shift at the Wiener Hut over on Main Street. Joey and Josh watched him walk. He had his little apron over one arm and seemed pretty caught up in whatever he was listening to on his phone. It was a fancy smartphone. The kid probably didn’t have a lot of cash, but that phone was nice. Joey caught Josh’s eye. Josh nodded. It was easy to fall in behind the kid and follow him. They could have been stomping like a herd of elephants, but the kid’s music was really loud.  
  
It was Josh who made the first move, darted in front of the kid, drew his knife.  
  
“Give me your phone and your wallet and no one will get hurt.”  
  
The kid cried out. He started to back away - and ran straight into Joey, who also drew his knife.  
  
“You heard the man,” Joey said. “Your phone and your wallet.”  
  
The kid’s blue eyes were wide, and he looked ready to hyperventilate. “Please - don’t hurt me - you can have anything you want -”  
  
“Two against one’s a little unfair, don’t you think?”  
  
Joey’s throat closed. He knew that accent. It was like Gambit, from the X-Men. He turned slowly, knife still drawn, and a tall man with massive shoulders was standing in the shadows. He wore a long dark coat and a dark cap, but Joey could see the edges of his beard, the gleam of his eyes.  
  
“How about we make those odds a little more fair?” The man opened his coat, and Joey flinched, dammit to hell, the guy had a gun, the guy had - a club studded with black teeth.  
  
“Hey now,” Josh said, voice surprisingly steady. “Let’s not get too crazy -”  
  
“Too crazy was you two punks thinking you could rob my boyfriend,” the man drawled, and Joey darted another glance at the kid.  
  
Boyfriend? Damn.  
  
“Benny,” the kid said.  
  
“I told you I’d pick you up.” Benny sounded surprisingly gentle, but hell if Joey was letting down his guard while he had the club.  
  
“Now get the hell out of here,” Benny said, “before I’m forced to get crazy.”  
  
Josh took off running. Joey took off after him.

*

  
  
Sam and Kevin looked up when something thumped down the hallway.  
  
“Benny and Samandriel,” Kevin said. “Teleported into their room.”  
  
Sam winced. “Right.” He reached for the victrola and turned it up to drown out the sounds of more thumping.  
  
“Are they back?” Charlie moseyed in from the kitchen, bearing a plate piled high with study junk food.   
  
“Back from where?” Sam asked.  
  
“I dunno. I saw them leave a while back. Samandriel was wearing his Wiener Hut uniform.”  
  
A moan and _big damn hero_ floated over the sound of the music. Sam turned it up.  
  
“The least they could do is using a muffling charm,” Kevin said with a sigh.  
  
Sam really didn’t want to know what was up with the uniform.


	40. Chapter 40

"What is it I'm supposed to be all worried about?" Dean asked, looking Benny and Samandriel up and down.

"A witch put a spell on Samandriel. He's a teenager now," Benny said.

Dean looked Samandriel up and down again. "So, basically no change."

"No," Samandriel said with a sigh.

Dean glanced at his watch. "Well, I've been working a case for twenty-six hours straight, and I need a nap. Tell Sam and Kevin. They'll hit the books in the morning. In the meantime, enjoy the advantages of a teenage refractory period." He smirked, turned on his heel, and headed for his room.

After a quick Google search, Benny dragged Samandriel back to their room.

If they forgot to tell Sam and Kevin first thing in the morning, oh well.

  
[Link](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/745018.html?thread=98481978#t98481978) |  



	41. Chapter 41

"Why are you so afraid of swimming?" Benny asks. "You trawled the Mariana Trench in search of the First Blade, but you won't paddle with me?" He's hanging onto the edge of the little boat he hired for the day.  
  
Samandriel huddles in the bow, eyeing the water warily.  
  
"Water," he says, "will make my wings wet, and they will grow heavy, and I will drown."  
  
Benny raises his eyebrows. "I don't see any wings."  
  
"My wings," Samandriel says softly, "are always with me."  
  
Benny swims backward, away from the boat. "Don't you trust me? I won't let you drown."  
  
Samandriel hesitates.  
  
Benny says, "Some people say it feels like flying."  
  
Samandriel lands in the water with a splash, and Benny laughs and laughs and laughs.


	42. Chapter 42

“You want me?” Benny asked, standing forward. He was alone, surrounded on all sides by angry, hostile vampires. Angry because he’d sold them out to the Winchesters. Hostile, because they were vampires. Hostility was in their nature. “I’m yours.”  
  
It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.  
  
The vampires charged. Benny lashed out with his club, caught one, caught another. A third jumped on his back, two shot for his legs -   
  
And then the world was full of blinding blue light. Benny squeezed his eyes shut, but he could still hear the flesh tearing, the screams, smell the burning.  
  
And then all was silent.  
  
Benny opened his eyes. Samandriel, wearing one of the outfits Dean had given him, was standing on the other side of the ring of fallen bodies.  
  
He tilted his head and smiled. “I want you. Can I have you?”  
  
“Took you long enough,” Benny grumbled, but Samandriel laughed and kissed him, and it was on to the next hunt.


	43. Chapter 43

Benny stared at him."You want to have a baby."  
  
Samandriel nodded and made a cradling motion with his arms. "Wouldn't it be wonderful? Our very own little human! We could raise it and love it and teach it to be strong, to fight the darkness and -"  
  
"We cannot make a baby." Benny gestured between himself and Samandriel.  
  
"We could adopt a baby!"  
  
Benny cast the others a pleading look. Dean looked horrified. Charlie was laughing. Sam looked - pained.  
  
"Neither of you legally exist," Kevin said, "so no, you can't adopt."  
  
"But we could just take one."  
  
"That's kidnapping," Mrs. Tran said. "Also illegal."  
  
Samandriel pouted. "We do illegal things all the time."  
  
"Kid has a point," Dean said, between fits of laughter.  
  
Castiel glared. "You're not helping."  
  
Sam said, "Let's start with a puppy."


End file.
